Yes, these babies had a hard time learning to eat. Also, Shy moved her babies next to the toilet on her own & the toilet area is completely clean. Read below to learn more. Meet Litter #23! We have 5 orphaned babies that need a mama. Someone found these kittens alone & brought them to the shelter. We did not take them away from a mama cat Mama Shy has done an amazing job with her own babies so I wanted to see if she would accept them & help us take care of them. There is nothing like real mama milk & the love that comes with it. At this time we now have all 5 kittens latching on perfectly to the bottle and Mama Shy is nursing them to supplement the bottle & give them the love, bonding & nutrients that we can't give them. She is loving on them & cleaning them just as she does for her own kittens, Macintosh & Timber. You can find Videos of the 3 of them, & the 2 babies that we lost, in the playlist for Litter #22. All 8 of our fosters are doing GREAT! Be sure to follow us of Facebook and Instagram for daily updates!

PLEASE READ: I've gotten several comments regarding the way we are feeding the kittens in this video. Yes, you should feed tiny kittens on their bellies. When they get older they get minds of their own & some don't wan't to lay down anymore. The main thing is keeping their throat and airway upright so they don't choke or aspirate. So when they get squirmy like this lil dude and won't stay on their belly, it's okay to park him on his lil butt. As long as his mouth & airway are upright it's perfectly safe. Also, when they get older it's harder to hold their head stationary so we sometimes hold the scruff of their neck. If you insist on holding his head in place when they get this wiggly, they just back up, right out of your hand. I've never once lost a kitten to aspiration or choking and we've never injured a kitten. I need you guys to place some trust in me & believe that I know what I'm doing & that the safety & health of the kittens if always my first priority. I am not the kind of foster mom who will only show you the good times when kittens are cooperating & everything is ideal. My #1 reason for sharing our foster journey is to encourage more people to rescue & foster. I feel like it is really irresponsible to mislead you & get you into something without knowing the facts. The truth is that rescue work is hardly ever ideal. When you first start bottle feeding or hand feeding a new kitten, it can take a while for them to get the hang of it. I show you this because this is what reality looks like when we first bring them home.

About Their Food:
They were much younger than we typically start slurry but they would not take milk. This is a technique I call 'Reverse Weaning' & it tricks them into taking their milk from a bottle or syringe. It's not natural for kittens to be bottle fed & some just flat out refuse to do so. That yummy meat flavor gets them to eat from the bottle or syringe & then we add more & more milk til they are only taking milk. They will then be weaned at an appropriate time. If we don't do this they will stave to death. We had these guys nursing with supplemental bottles within 24 hrs, I believe. It didn't take long. It's not ideal but it keeps them alive and it doesn't need to be done very often. Please also note that we did this under the supervision of our shelters vet.

About Shy's bed area... Shy started out with a separate bed with a heating pad and bedding just like all of our mams do but she didn't want to stay there. Moms will move their babies & we can't stop them Additionally, babies the age of Shy's bio babies can climb right out of a basket. Watch some more of our videos & you'll see that we set up a few spots in the bathroom for each new mom and her babies. They almost always gravitate to that side of the toilet. I don't know why, they won't tell me. But I promise the bathroom gets deep cleaned between every litter & we never personally use that bathroom for anything other than showers. So the toilet never gets used, if that makes you feel better
I don't usually touch the mama while she meets new babies to accept. We had already bonded & she looked to me for approval so I gave it to her

Everything I recommend for cats & kittens can be found here. food & gear we use plus all of our favorite cat related stuff:
https://www.amazon.com/shop/influence...

Before Commenting, Please Note
*These kitties are NOT ours. We foster through our local shelter. The cats come into the shelter as strays or owner surrenders
*ALL cats are vaccinated, spayed and neutered before the shelter allows them to be adopted
*YES, their bedding is changed and litter boxes are scooped throughout the day. Sometimes I clean AFTER a video so I can catch something they are doing on camera.
*The shelter covers all healthcare but we pay for all other fostering costs out of our own pocket. These costs include food, litter, bedding, toys, gas to drive to & from the shelter, etc